This past week: COVID in North Vancouver Island

Cortes Currents

English - December 17, 2020 15:45 - 9.72 MB
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Roy L Hales / Cortes Currents - This past week was the deadliest British Columbia has seen since the pandemic began. Dr Bonnie Henry reported 24 new deaths yesterday, which brings the total number of fatalities since last Friday to 105. The number of active cases in the province is close to 10,000.

However there is also good news.

British Columbia's first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were given to front line health care workers on Tuesday. A small shipment, possibly consisting of two trays of vaccine, will arrive on Vancouver Island next week.

The number of active COVID cases is falling on Vancouver Island.

There were 19 active cases reported in North Vancouver Island yesterday. Only two weeks ago, there were 41.

Thanks to prompt action by the Klahoose First Nation’s emergency operation team, there are no known active cases on Cortes Island. But Island Health does not report the whereabouts of individual cases. So the public does not know when the virus actually reached Cortes and, to paraphrase Dr Charmaine Enns, Medical Health Officer for North Vancouver Island, it is best to assume it is still among us.

In the podcast, Dr Enns describes contact tracing and close encounters

photo credit: Syringes with bottle with COVID 19 vaccine on white background by Marco Verch, Professional Photographer, via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)